In a database system, backups during online operation are typical arranged so that there are occasional full backups in combination with continuous (redo) log backups. During data recovery, a full backup will be imported first and afterwards the (redo) log applied. With some distributed database systems having a plurality of nodes, a log can be stored across multiple nodes (i.e., servers, etc.). With such an arrangement, a full backup can be transactionally-consistent over all nodes, however, log backup cannot always be synchronized due to performance reasons. As the whole system needs to reach one common (transactionally-consistent) point in time after data recovery, the log applied on the different servers need to be synchronized. Further, the log should be read only once to optimize performance, which is especially important if the backup is read from a tertiary media, such as a tape.